This April BioWare releases Update 5.10.2 to Star Wars: The Old Republic. This patch is rather small on a first glimpse, but it contains three interesting new quality of life features that have been in high demand for a very long time – Guild Heraldry tool, allowing you to create your own guild banner; completely redesigned preview window and an under-the-hood upgrade to the Dynamic Placable Objects system!
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Please note, this article will be updated and expanded as more information is revealed. Links to the patch notes and all other news related to 5.10.2 will be added to the bottom of the post.
In the following few paragraphs I have a more in-depth overview of all new and improved things part of the April update.
GUILD HERALDRY TOOL
With the release of Update 5.10 Jedi Under Siege back in December, BioWare brought a serious update and upgrade to the guild system in the game. They left one thing for “a later time”, though. This time is now and the thing is called Guild Heraldry.
This tool allows you to create a unique banner for your guild. The opportunities are not limitless, though. You can pick one image and one background. For each one of them you can pick two colors (one accent and one background). You can preview the banner in four dimensions – large vertical banner, large horizontal banner , big square logo and a little square icon.
To start editing your guild herald, click on the vertical large banner that appears in the top left corner of your guild window. This will open up the new Guild Heraldry tool.
The symbols and backgrounds are created manually by the BioWare designers. You cannot import your own creation. With the launch of this system you will find over 100 symbols and 40 backgrounds.
The tool is available for free to any guild master. However, making any changes to your guild banner will cost you credits.
The tool was available for testing on the Public Test Server for a limited time. The video you are about to watch is from there.
NEW AND IMPROVED PREVIEW WINDOW
It has been a dream of yours to be able to animate certain actions and fully preview the features this new mount has to offer. Right? No? Come on, admit it.
The preview window has been re-created from the ground up for this update. The old one, as BioWare revealed in a blog post recently, did not allow them to build upon it and expand its functionality. The new version includes a few new instruments like the ability to see how your new lightsabers would look in combat. Unfortunately this feature comes without sound, for now.
On the right side there is a fold-able panel where you can see at any time what items you are currently previewing. The most recently placed item is marked with a bright blue border around its slot.
In the new preview window you can see how a speeder or mount animates when taking off, how a lightsaber animation plays out. There are separate slots even for color crystals and tuning effects. Here is what animations you can expect based on the item you are previewing and its status:
- Mounts – It will play that mount’s flourish if it has one, if not it will show the mount in motion. Pressing it again will stop the mount from moving.
- Character with weapon drawn – Character will begin an animation set to that weapon type. Pressing it again will stop the animation.
- Character with weapon sheathed – Character will run in place. Pressing it again will stop the character from running.
- Character with pet previewed – Both the character and pet will begin running. Pressing it again will stop both from running.
In the video below you can see a full overview with commentary of the new preview window with all of its new features and functionality.
CHANGES TO THE DYNAMIC PLACABLE OBJECTS SYSTEM
While you enjoy your game, you probably don’t see the world around your character the same way BioWare designers do. Where you see a tree, a terminal or a decoration, a developer sees manually created and placed object with a large amount of possible bugs related to it.
Dynamic Placable Objects (DYNs) are objects that designers place in the world that can change or be changed, based on how they’re set up. Nearly everything you interact with in-game is based on a DYN. Really! A Mission item that a player interacts with, or an elevator switch are both examples of interactive DYNs. Lights on a wall or a neon sign, while they aren’t interactable, are DYNs that help us build the game world. In the past, every single element and property of these objects had to be individually hand-crafted by a designer.
That’s what the old Dynamic Placable Objects system is about – the fluff of the game that creates your environment and makes it believable and interesting instead of just simple walls and a ceiling.
What will be changed, is more a behind-the-scenes work that many of us may not even notice. It is, as BioWare states, going to allow the developers to expand it and lower the amount of possible bugs: “We’re taking what are all individually separate entities and packaging them together into a single item. By doing this, we will refine, polish, and optimize the entire process.”
DOUBLE REWARDS RETURNS
Tradition dictated that the release of a “major” (quotation added, because 5.10.2 is rather small actually) update to the game is accompanied by everybody’s favorite Double Rewards event.
This time it is set to last for only a week, beginning on April 16th and ending on April 23rd.
At the same time we will have another regular monthly event – the Bounty Contract Week.
Double Rewards is the time when everything is doubled. Most of the players, me included, use it to boost another alt through the early levels or even all the way to 70. It’s nice to have a backup character that can help you farm your next set of gear or tokens and also to see the origin story one more time from a different perspective.
SWTOR 5.10.2 RELEASE DATE AND A FEW THOUGHTS
Update 5.10.2 Heralds of Victory is releasing on April 11. The date is not finalized yet, but as community manager Eric Musco posted on the forums, the target date is this one – Thursday. It does not contain any new story for your character, nor does it bring the few still missing classic companions back. It does lay the ground for future upgrades, though, with the new DYN system and the improved preview window.
The Guild Heraldry tool can hardly be seen as a credit sink, like most new tools have been in the past few years. It is a nice addition, but it should not have come as a major feature in a quarterly update. With 5.10.2 coming in April, I fear it may be yet another two or three months before we see any development of the new story arc that began on Ossus.
I am not against the Heraldry tool, it’s just annoying how much attention this receives. Perhaps for large social guilds and roleplayers this is a fantastic addition, but for me it doesn’t bring much of quality to the game over all.
The Preview Window is something I personally never requested myself, but now that I have seen what you can actually do with the new version, I wonder how come we didn’t get this years ago. It is a huge plus being able to use it when buying expensive things, because it will lower the risk you take of not knowing if the item’s animation would be to you liking or a deal-breaker.
I am wondering if and how much the new DYN system will improve the game’s performance. Nowhere did BioWare talk about improved FPS or anything related to that at all. The fact that this change will allow the devs to work quicker and more efficiently is good enough for me, but some performance stability would have been nice. SWTOR is a seven-years-old game and it still doesn’t run smooth on modern hardware, especially on high resolutions.
SWTOR 5.10.3 COMING TO PTS
The next update to SWTOR – patch 5.10.3, called “Dantooine Incursion” is coming to PTS in the week after Star Wars Celebration. Musco’s exact wording is “later next week”, which means we can expect to have Dantooine on PTS around April 18th or 19th.
Dantooine Incursion’s announcement dropped a bit earlier than usual. It reveals a new in-game event, which will be later transformed to recurring like the Gree and Bounty Countract Week.
From the official announcement on swtor.com released last week:
With the renewed war between the Galactic Republic and the Sith Empire, the remote planet Dantooine has taken on sudden significance: its location at the edge of Imperial space makes it a perfect staging area for Republic military ships traveling to and from the front lines. Unable to breach the Republic lines and attack the planet directly, the agents of the Empire have recruited the brutal Nova Blade pirates to attack Dantooine from within the Republic’s own territory, catching the planet’s defenders completely off guard with the overwhelming violence of their attack.
In the ensuing chaos, elite Imperial forces have infiltrated Dantooine and established a hidden base on the planet’s surface, aiming to cripple the Republic’s efforts with a series of surgical strikes. The Nova Blades lash out at anyone and everyone they can find; despite originally being hired by the Empire, this brutal pirate armada cares only for the plunder they can claim. Staggered by the pirates’ ruthlessness and the Empire’s cunning, the Republic’s harried defenders put out a call for assistance from anyone who can help them hold Dantooine against the enemy’s deadly incursions…
What do you think? Are you excited to jump into SWTOR Update 5.10.2? Which of the new features do you find most interesting and useful? On the other hand – what did you hope to see, but didn’t.
PATCH NOTES
